Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9098, 18 March 1908, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

SOME interesting remarks were made in a recent issue of the London Daily Telegraph on the subject of the unemployed. “Debates on tbo unemployed always wear a certain look of sameness, and always have an inconclusive ending. Yet, if they did not, we might be sure that the conclusion reached was a wrong one. There is no short cut to the remedy for a disease which is itself the product of a score of varied causes, each demanding separate treatment. Nevertheless, serious discussions, like that which monopolised the sitting of the House of Commons the other night, are of the greatest service, for they help to clear thinking on this difficult problem. One dominant fact to be borne in mind is that vague statements as to the extent of unemployment are worth less than nothing. When Labour agitators got up and say that they know personally hundreds of genuine cases\of unemployment, or that the District Committees only touch the fringe of the subject, they are merely repeating phrases, not stating facts. Over the country at large there is no widespread destitution at the present time, nor has there boon, wo are glad to think, for some years past, although there is undoubtedly chronic distress in particular districts, notably in Outer Loudon. The official figures relating to the working of the Unemployed Act of 1905 flatly contradict much of the pessimistic talk which is now in fashion : 110,835 applications were made 'to the district committee during the winter of 1905-0; during the winter following the fapplications fell to 87,000. No doubt partgof the falling-off was due to the circumstance that the'distress committees did not conduct their business on the" Poplar model. They sifted t!ie candidates, rejecting those whom they found unworthy, and probably most of these did not apply again. If the work offered iiad been easy and nominal, or if doles of money without work had been forthcoming, the applications would assuredly have been doubled or trebled. It staudsjto Mr Burns’ credit that he has administered his fund on sound, economic, and statesmanlike principles, and has resolutely set his face against what we may call a policy of easy giving. Indeed, he has been denounced unsparingly up and down the country for actually having money in band and not spending every penny of the annual grant of £200,000. Out of the thirty-one provincial distress committees which received grants from the Local Government Board fourteen had balances over at the end of last winter, and even Loudon, wherefunemploymant is most visible, bad a balance of £15,483. We hope that the figures of the present winter will be equally satisfactory, in spite of the rise of the unemployment percentage in the skilled trades, which always carries with it a rise in the unemployment percentage in the ranks of unskilled la hour.